Providing information on accessing the electoral register
Mayor of London, constituency Assembly Member and individual London-wide Assembly Member candidates can, for electoral purposes, request a copy of the full register and absent voters’ lists for the area in which they are standing:1
candidates at the Mayor of London election are entitled to a copy of the full register for all boroughs in Greater London
individual candidates at the London-wide Assembly Member election are entitled to a copy of the full register for all boroughs in Greater London
constituency Assembly Member candidates are entitled to a copy of the full register for those boroughs which fall within the constituency in which they are standing
Candidates on a party list at the London-wide Assembly Member election are not entitled to receive a copy of the registers: it is the election agent who will be entitled to receive a copy of the full register for all boroughs in Greater London.
Registers can only be supplied if the candidate (or in the case of a party list, the election agent) has made a written request.
While the legal responsibility for receiving requests and supplying registers to candidates’ rests with the relevant ERO, you should start discussions with EROs at an early stage to determine how best to ensure that all candidates can be supplied with registers in such a way that they have timely and easy access to them, and decide how this will be communicated.
For example, you could decide to supply the registers centrally on behalf of the EROs as part of the nomination pack for the Mayor of London and London-wide Assembly Member contests. The benefit of this approach is that it could operate so that candidates would only need to complete one request form covering all voting areas and receive their registers from a single place, instead of having to approach each ERO separately with individual requests.
If you are considering supplying the registers centrally, you will have to discuss and agree with the EROs how the various registers could be brought together for subsequent supply and consider how this would work for both printed and data copies. The registers must be supplied in data form unless a printed copy has been specifically requested.2
You will need to ensure that whatever arrangements you put in place are clearly communicated to the candidates and their agents to enable them to use the registers to campaign and obtain the necessary subscribers.